Zero Hour
by Valieara
Summary: They’re talking about a case when she suppresses a shiver, tries not to trip over the word metacarpal, the taste of the intimately familiar word suddenly sharp on her tongue. She takes it well, all things considered.
1. Zero Hour

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing; for fun, not profit; etc.

**Setting/Spoilers:** None. Place this anywhere you want. If I had to pick I'd say late season two, early season three.

**Notes: **This was written because I frankly don't believe that someone as observant as Brennan would not recognize the weight of Booth's words and gestures. It's more likely she hasn't the first clue what to do about it, deciding instead to go anthropologist on its ass.

oOo

Contrary to popular belief, Brennan is not entirely oblivious to the extent of Booth's emotions where she is concerned.

It's not a precise knowledge, nor could it be. The first rule of anthropology is to leave no trace of oneself in the study, to remain on the fringes of existence itself. She knows it instinctively: Observe; immerse; imagine the scenario as though you, the anthropologist, are surrounded by an impenetrable bubble, semi-permeable to allow only for communication.

She had been faced with a curious dilemma when first faced with Booth's roundabout declarations and physical gestures, a wild sort of anthropology that refused to be boxed or neatly defined, all rules that rightly should exist falling carelessly by the wayside. Objectivity had naturally gotten lost in the muddle of emotions that, by their very definition, are both personal and subjective.

As a scientist, she acknowledges she should never have begun such a study. Everything about it is wrong.

She's found her lack of knowledge regarding pop culture is an easy veneer to hide behind, especially given the fact that in real life situations ignorance feeds ignorance. Where she has been willing to let every other relationship slide by as it might without any real attempt to identify its critical mass, its singular breaking point, she has been compelled by forces she doesn't understand to treat this particular relationship differently.

The details are not simply in that he looks at her or speaks with her, but in the manner in which he does so. There are nuances so numerous layered into the thick subtext of everything he does in her presence that she cannot separate one variable for another. There is no control to use in comparison, namely because as both subject and experimenter she cannot have any herself.

This first, mild realization arrives over what Booth calls 'comfort food'. It's late enough at the diner that the waitress is bussing the last table and sweeping the floor, the lights dimming in a mood reminiscent of endings and sad goodbyes, sudden wind storms and goosebumps.

They're talking about a case when she suppresses a shiver, tries not to trip over the word _metacarpal_, the taste of the intimately familiar word suddenly sharp on her tongue. She takes it well, all things considered.

He starts to comment on her wide eyes, the odd lilt in her side of the conversation; she steals one of his fries. He bats her hand away with a look around his eyes that belays his words, and she smiles, and they leave before they're kicked out.

She catalogues it all, files it away in her brain for cross reference and a later disambiguation.

She remembers him saying once that simply because she doesn't believe in a higher power, it doesn't mean his God doesn't believe in her; _More things in heaven and earth, Bones._ It had been intended not to frighten her, but to make her consider possibilities far outside her own, studiously crafted realm. She assumes – she feels justified in doing so, in this case – the same holds true for his definition of love.

There is little she can do in light of this revelation she comes to, on a cold, wintry night in November at approximately 11:10 inside her office; and so she tries not to do anything to encourage it, voids left by her mother and father and brother whispering to stay objective, genocide victims and the muted lights of Limbo spinning around her mind until she almost cries from the near devastation of it all.

Booth asks her what's wrong when he picks her up at 8:00 AM the next morning. She can only see the red numbers of her digital clock burned into her visual cortex like a branding. _Alpha male_, she thinks – she's stopped mentioning it, but has never stopped making the comparison in her mind.

She's silent for most of the car ride. Booth throws her concerned looks, keen and all-too tangible, for the duration, but respects the silence.

She's counting down to zero hour.


	2. The Longest Distance between Two Places

**Notes: **For the record, I never continue fics I've intended to be one-shots; and this is especially odd for me because I try to stay away from topics oft-written about. However, for the first time I really wanted to expand on one of my conclusions, so here I am. Hopefully I haven't beaten the negligence that was _Wannabe in the Weeds/Pain in the Heart _one more time in a similar way. It does get a little AU at the end where Brennan's character development is concerned, but I've always wondered why the writers didn't take advantage of it.

oOo

_Time is the longest distance between two places.__  
_

_- Tennessee Williams_

oOo

_i._

She spends her days in Limbo. She feels, if nothing else, that it's appropriate.

_ii._

It's late at night when Brennan moves around her desk to find her clock blinking back at her in unrepentant numbers: 12:00.

There must have been a power outage the night before, she rationalizes, even knowing that the Jeffersonian has backup generators in case of such a situation. She sits and stares; and it feels like the branding she'd refused when time still moved, if not mellifluously, then swiftly enough to smooth whatever thoughts moved to grate and scrape against her mind. She thinks of bombs the moment before an explosion and artificially moved hands pointing to doomsday. It leaves her with no concept of time, and it could be fifteen minutes or two hours later when Angela finds her hyperventilating.

"Oh, my God, Bren," she says, and hurries over to her, kneeling and touching her face with trembling hands; and Brennan can almost see her thought processes, a constant stream of panicked negatives as jumbled as her own jarred mind. Significant loss will induce such symptoms, she knows.

"I'm okay," she wheezes, as Angela's hand is already on her phone.

Her vision starts to fade in a burst of black-edged color. Her ears are ringing with the harshness of her own breaths. Angela's eyes are wide and worried – never has she seen her like this, Brennan knows – but she stays, coaching her breathing with as calm a voice as she can muster.

Angela drives her to Hodgins' estate. Brennan doesn't complain. Hodgins' luxury car doesn't have a digitized clock; and Brennan can't quite make out the silhouettes of the hands on the clock face, the fleeting light of each passing street lamp too ephemeral to illuminate anything but the lane markers. Angela crawls into a spare bed behind her, a meager attempt to conserve every last bit of warmth derived from their friendship, and Brennan dreams of shadow hands clawing at her arms. She manages not to wake up screaming. It's still dark outside, and she feels she is suspended in a lifetime measured by timelessness.

_Zero hour, _she thinks, and tries to imagine what comes after.

_iii._

Zach says something, she can't even recall what, and it causes a smaller relapse. She keeps quiet and thinks that if she's careful, she may even go unnoticed.

"Dr. Brennan, may I see you in my office for a moment?" Dr. Saroyan's voice comes from her left.

Her eyes are slightly unfocused, but Brennan can make out Cam's tilted head and questioning expression.

They reach her office, and to Brennan's great surprise, Cam immediately reaches for her hand and guides her to her own chair.

"What did you want to speak to me about?" Brennan asks, almost desperately, but Cam doesn't speak.

"Would you like me to call for Angela?" she asks quietly, and Brennan shakes her head, knowing Angela will cry again, and she is loathe to cause her friend more pain.

In many ways, Brennan envies Angela for this. She sees release and craves it; stalks it in maddening circles and fears it. There are too many variables, confounding and unknown alike.

Ultimately there is no reason other than that there is simply too much to cry for, a depreciating wealth of memories acquired over fifteen years. She hasn't truly cried since she was sixteen in her third foster home, having learned of both its pointlessness and its stigmas; and God knew she had no desire to make herself appear weaker and more susceptible to mental and physical injury. While an action must precipitate a consequence, she cannot even begin to hypothesize the extent of either, should she give into the overwhelming desire to let go of her control. She does not cry.

But Cam holds on in the silence; and Brennan thinks she can feel the blood oath between them in the very room that had witnessed their countless disagreements and vague tolerance of each other, Booth's blood sticky and real in the minute space left between their clutched hands. She can't stop looking at them, intertwined, remembering brown hands on white, and red all over both; steadfast terms of science and reason spoken firmly in her ear, and she hadn't been able to make any sense of it at all, measuring seconds by heartbeats.

Emotions were never something she could quantify; and if there is anything Booth taught her, this is it. It had been impossible to measure death with life still pulsing beneath her hands, a protest; and the memory of it, death in life and life in death, hangs like a stench she hasn't accustomed herself to over the truth. It's too intimate.

Cam doesn't look at her differently when they finally leave her office twenty-two minutes later – Brennan is surprised at the short amount of time elapsed – and for that, Brennan is grateful.

_iv._

She is coerced into going to his funeral after a meaningless spatter of days rendered dull by the ever-present lights in Limbo, safe and constant. She blinks at sunlight, squinting.

His service is dry; and the eulogy given by Caroline, arguably the largest personality she knows, stilted. She lays a rose on the casket. Angela presses one into her hands, urging her to do the same.

She doesn't move forward, fidgeting where she stands and wondering where the hell Rebecca and Parker are. The prayers from the service are running through her head like a bad record:

_Holy Mary, mother of God, be with us poor sinners now and in the hour of our death_

_Be with us now and in the hour of our death_

_The hour _

_Our Father_

Something in her snaps, and she realizes she's been clutching the rose hard enough for the thorns to draw blood. She hopes she won't dissolve into another panic attack, not in this too-public place, not at this too-volatile time.

But there is a scuffle, and she thinks she's seeing a ghost when the member of the honor guard stands up to face her, and her sight explodes in a fury of black-edged color as she realizes the truth. She can't speak, she can't, and she's running and her knuckles hurt like hell. Her breathing trips her up and she stops beside Angela's car.

"Sweetie," Angela breathes, catching up to her. The look on her face is almost too tender, and she can't stand it, can't breathe.

"Can we go?" she asks instead, sounding like the fifteen year old girl she once was, and Angela nods, unlocking the car. She catches sight of Booth just before they pull out, and Brennan decides what cut deepest was his latent expectancy of normalcy buried under a caustically familiar voice and tone.

Not after this. Her breathing calms, her forehead against cool glass, and her eyes close.

_v._

She's spent her life believing only in what she can physically sense and measure. What behaves in a recognizable pattern under study is tangible, is trustworthy. What falls outside those bounds simply does not exist.

It's been three weeks, and each day a whirlwind fed from every side. She thinks of Zach and Booth, and the ache seeps into her bones deeper with every conjuration of memory until she's so exhausted she can't think logically.

Brennan is willing to admit to her mistakes when proven wrong; and today she acknowledges it in whole, unafraid, feeling an inexplicable weight lifted from her chest with the forfeit of her control. She breathes in the freedom, and it's deep and bittersweet, like too-cold air, cutting at her lungs with each inhale.

Pure empiricism cannot guide her life. If there's anything Zach has taught her, it is this.

Next to her, Booth is fiddling with the radio, grumbling in what seems to be a good-natured manner. She wonders how it is that he doesn't feel the change in her, when it seems as though her basest natures have inverted upon themselves.

"You okay, there, Bones?" he asks. She's been staring, she realizes, remembering he'd always found that unsettling.

She nods an affirmative, and he doesn't push it.

Time ticks forward. She tries to imagine what will come after.


End file.
